


momentary lapse of reason

by jeepsarmitage



Series: god only knows it's not what we would choose to do (me and you) [4]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Autistic!Carmilla, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 20:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5142005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeepsarmitage/pseuds/jeepsarmitage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> "A great deal of the life experiences she had been a part of was not so much pursued as accidently accumulated. And that was enough, for a long time. She never really thought she needed or wanted anything further." <i></i></i>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
<b> In which Carmilla learns to fly </b><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a soul in tension that's learning to fly

**Author's Note:**

> sorry about the wait, but as you might have seen this particular part of the series is multi-chaptered so yay for that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sadie dies on a Tuesday_

**a soul in tension that's learning to fly**

**.**

 

> _There's no sensation to compare with this_
> 
> _Suspended animation, A state of bliss_

 

 

_//_

 

 

Sadie dies on a Tuesday.

 

It isn’t unexpected, exactly, because Sadie has been sick for a while now. But even so Carmilla finds that she is entirely unprepared for the onslaught of feelings she experiences when Lafontaine knocks on her door Wednesday morning with the news that Sadie has passed away in her sleep.

 

“But, why?” Is the only thing that comes out of her mouth, “why?”

 

Lafontaine just shakes their head, and Carmilla spends the rest of her day sitting alone on her couch, wondering why bad things happen to good people.

 

Because Sadie was a good person. She was the best person, in Carmilla opinion, because Sadie genuinely cared about everyone. She didn’t mind the constant questions that Carmilla asked, and she listened when Carmilla got excited about something. Sadie was the kind of person that Carmilla wished she could be, and now she was gone and Carmilla’s chest hurts in a way that it never had before. Like a hole has been ripped through her chest, even though she is still perfectly whole physically.

 

And she still couldn’t figure out _why._

Why did this happen? Why now? Why did it have to be Sadie?

 

Sadie dies on a Tuesday, and the following Monday Carmilla stands next to the open casket, wondering why it is she can’t cry.

 

Everyone else is crying, and everyone else is sad and telling stories and holding each other, murmuring comforting words into each other’s embrace. Carmilla sits with her hands folded in her lap, eyes trained on the open casket where Sadie is laying peacefully.

 

It is hard to believe that that is how she is going to stay. That Carmilla will never walk across the hall and be greeted with her warm hugs and welcoming smile. She will never sit on the grass by the playground, listening to Sadie’s stories. Sadie will never laugh or smile or cry or eat Christmas dinner with her, and it is hard to comprehend because there is so much more Carmilla wants to do with Sadie.

 

They haven’t gone to the aquarium together, and Carmilla still hasn’t learnt the recipe to Sadie’s fudge brownies. Everything seems so unfinished, like there is still more to be done.

 

But maybe it isn’t Sadie’s life that is unfinished. Carmilla has, after all, heard about Sadie’s adventures. Has heard about her trip across Europe after she finished high school, and her affair with an English gentlemen when she was in her twenties. Sadie had loved and lost and seen her children grow up and love and lose as well. She had seen her grandchildren born.

 

Sadie had lived a good life, Carmilla thinks, and as she watches the casket get lowered into the ground she looks towards LaFontaine. They have tear marks down their face, but there is an air of acceptance about them that makes Carmilla all the more sure that Sadie had not lived an unfished life. It was her time to go, and it is sad and Carmilla is going to miss the older woman’s presence in the apartment complex, but Sadie wouldn’t want her to be sad for long.

  
So Carmilla goes back to her apartment, and before she goes to bed that night she looks out the kitchen window at the spot on the grass she used to sit on with Sadie, and she promises herself that next Saturday she will go down and have a picnic like they used to do together.

 

Because even though Sadie’s time on earth has ended, Carmilla’s is still going and she has a lot left to do.

 

+++

 

_“I still have a lot left to do...”_

It becomes a sort of mantra in the months following Sadie’s death, and maybe that is a good thing because it means that Carmilla is actively trying to pursue the things that she wants in her life as opposed to simply letting things happen whether she wants them to or not. It is as though Sadie dying has opened a door for Carmilla that she hasn’t realised had been shut in the first place.

 

She has spent a great deal of her life letting things happen to her. Sure, she had applied for jobs and pursued her interests in college from an academic perspective, but as far as the social aspects were concerned Carmilla has never felt a need for them. She wasn’t so much a partygoer in college as the loud noises and large crowds made her nervous, and she enjoyed the familiarity that routine came with so she never spontaneously did anything.

 

A great deal of the life experiences she had been a part of was not so much pursued as accidently accumulated. And that was enough, for a long time. She never really thought she needed or wanted anything further.

 

Carmilla enjoys her life. It is familiar and fulfilling, for the most part.

 

So why is it that she suddenly feels as though something is missing?

 

 

+++

 

Eighteen days after Sadie’s funeral, Carmilla goes to visit Mark Hollis.

 

He welcomes her in as he always does, and Carmilla sits down at the table and waits for Mark to come out of the kitchen with two mugs of coffee and a plate of biscuits because that’s what they always did when Carmilla came to visit.

 

When he’s seated on the opposite side of the table, Carmilla picks up her biscuit and takes a bite before blowing on her coffee and taking a sip. “How are you?”

 

Mark smiles at her, picking up his coffee mug and holding it in both hands. “I’m doing well.”

 

“How’s Laura?”

 

The smile falls slightly, and Carmilla frowns because she doesn’t know much about reading facial expressions but she knows enough to know that a faltering smile means that something isn’t good.

 

“What happened?”

 

Mark sighs, and places the mug back on the table, staring into it before looking back up to meet Carmilla’s gaze.

 

“She’s uh, been having some issues at work.”

 

Carmilla frowns. “Why?”

 

Mark stares at her with pursed lips and an unreadable expression on his face, and Carmilla counts the seconds in her head (twenty-two), before Mark sighs again, shaking his head.

 

“Are you sure you want to know?”

 

“Why would I ask if I didn’t want to know? Is Laura okay?”

 

There’s another pause. This time slightly shorter (twelve), before Mark is picking up his coffee mug again and staring at Carmilla over the top of it.

 

“Danny has been uh…causing some issues.”

 

The rush of anger that shoots through Carmilla is unusual, and she jolts in her seat and her hand hits the mug. She isn’t aware that the mug had tipped and the liquid had spilt over her hand until she is pulled away from the table and led to the kitchen.

 

“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.” She repeats, as Mark runs the cold water over her hand. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

 

From a distance, she hears Mark say that it’s okay, but all Carmilla knows is the spilt coffee and the cold water rushing over her hand.

 

_Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…_

+++

 

She doesn’t visit Mark for exactly three months after that incident.

 

+++

 

When she was a child, Carmilla’s mother had put her in therapy.

 

At the time, Carmilla didn’t really understand why she didn’t enjoy the experience, because everyone was telling her that, _“it’s for your own good, sweetie”_ and, _“this will help you be normal_ ”

 

The therapist that her mother hired was an older woman named Betsy, and Carmilla saw her three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 4pm.

 

Betsy worked in a small office in the same building as the family doctor, and Carmilla really hated the room she worked out of because everything was yellow. Everything except the hugged cushioned chairs that were brown, and the room as a whole just made her eyes hurt and gave her a headache.

 

She endured it, though, because she thought that was what she was supposed to do. She was supposed to go see Betsy at 4pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 4pm, and she was supposed to get better.

 

The thing Carmilla came to understand in the years after Betsy was that there was nothing wrong with her in the first place.

 

Betsy was working under the assumption that Carmilla needed fixing. That Carmilla was somehow broken. Betsy was working under the assumption that Carmilla needed to function in a certain way so that she appeared “normal” – whatever that meant. And the more Carmilla grew to become independent – to find her place in the world – the more she came to understand that there was nothing about her that needed fixing. She wasn’t – and _isn’t_ – broken.

 

Betsy was wrong, in that regard, just as she was wrong about nearly everything she worked with Carmilla on, and Carmilla sometimes wonders what she would be like if her mother had never forced her to go and see Betsy at all.

 

Maybe, she thinks, she’d be less scared about what others think of her.

 

Dr Fieldman is nothing like Betsy, which is probably why Carmilla likes him so much.

 

He isn’t patronising, and he doesn’t work out of an office with yellow walls and brown couches, and when he talks to Carmilla, she feels as though he is being really honest with her.

 

When she talks to him, she feels as though he’s actually listening.

 

Like he actually cares.

 

Which is why Carmilla tells him about her feeling as though her life is unfinished.

 

“Well of course it is,” Dr. Fieldman replies, “you’re still very young.”

 

“I wish to do more,” Carmilla replies, “I wish to do more. To be more. I want to be able to look back on my life and feels as though I’ve accomplished something.”

 

Dr Fieldman studies her for a minute. Carmilla knows because she counted it in her head. When he does answer, he cocks his head to the right and looks at Carmilla with knitted eyebrows, an expression Carmilla had come to understand meant he was confused. “Do you feel as though you are not accomplishing anything right now?”

Carmilla shakes her head.

 

“Why is that?”

 

“I’m not _doing_ anything. I have my routine, and it’s safe and I know what to expect and it gets me through the day. But if I continue with this routine, by the time I die I won’t have any stories to tell. The people who know me will say that I lived my life in the same routine from the time I graduated college until I died, and I don’t want that. I want people to look back at my life, and see that I’ve done things. That I’ve experienced things. I want to be able to look back and know that I haven’t lived my life with the same routine each day. I want something more.”

 

He nods his head, and Carmilla waits for him to reply, feeling her chest rise and fall heavily and her heart thumbing like a weight in her chest. Her fingertips tingle, and she wonders if this is what it feels like to be excited. To feel anticipation.

 

“Well,” Dr Fieldman says, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward in his chair. Carmilla leans forward too, but she’s not entirely sure why. It seems as though her body is working on autopilot today, but she finds that she doesn’t necessarily mind. “You have several options.”

 

Carmilla nods when he pauses, and when she doesn’t respond he continues.

 

“Many people, when they feel as though they’ve hit a rut in their life, make a change in their career.”

 

“I like my job,” Carmilla says. It’s true. She does enjoy her job, and it works for her and she don’t really feel like that’s the thing that isn’t right in your life.

 

Dr. Fieldman nods. “Well, we’ve talked extensively about your love life, and I don’t feel as though mixing that up at the moment is a particularly good thing to do right now. Have you considered travelling?”

 

“Travelling?”

 

He nods, and Carmilla frown because travelling has never really been something she’s spent a great deal of time doing. She went away for college, but she came right back again when she got a job offer, and she hasn’t really ever been one for weekend road trips or sight seeing.

 

“Not really.”

 

“Many people find travelling is a good way to get life experience. Students, particularly, go after high school or college. Cultural immersion, and getting to see different countries, that sort of thing.” He smiles, and you simply nod. “You don’t have to go international. Maybe start with a small road trip, or even a weekend in a different city. See what works for you.”

 

Carmilla nods in response.

 

+++

 

Joseph thinks that it’s a great idea, going travelling, when Carmilla tells him over dinner the following Friday.

 

Dinner with Joseph and James on Friday nights have become a regular occurrence, and Carmilla finds she doesn’t mind it so much because she likes James, and her father and her have been getting to know each other again and sometimes she feels as though things have gone back to way they were when she was five and he was swinging her onto his shoulders in the backyard.

 

“You could go over the summer. James and I have been talking about his post-graduation plans, the two of you could go together.”

 

Carmilla looks at James, and he smiles at her, nodding.

 

“Where would we go?”

 

Their father shrugs, and Carmilla turn to look at James again who is frowning slightly and she wonders if he’s changed his mind already. But then his face lights up and he grins at her with an excited gleam in his eye.

 

“How about Europe?”

 

//

 

> _Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies_
> 
> _Tongue tied and twisted Just an earth bound misfit I_

 


	2. on the turning away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Thank you,” James says when Carmilla’s getting comfortable in the seat she’ll be occupying for the next nine hours and ten minutes. “For coming with me, that is.”_
> 
> _“I should be thanking you,” she replies, and smile at him softly. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”_

 

> Don't accept that what's happening  
>  Is just a case of others' suffering  
>  Or you'll find that you're joining in  
>  The turning away
> 
> _-_ Pink Floyd

.

**on the turning away**

**.**

Standing on an empty field in the French countryside on a clear night, there are a lot of things that run through Carmilla’s mind. As she looks to the sky she is surprised that for once, she doesn’t immediately feel consumed by the need to turn to James and recount all the trivial facts that come to mind. Rather, she finds herself leaning her head on her brother’s shoulder and she looks further into the sky. She pictures herself moving beyond the visible stars; delving further into the depths of space, and she imagines leaving everything behind as she ascends through the outer limits of the universe, and she realise how innately minute she is in comparison.

 

How trivial everything seems, all of a sudden.

 

And so she wraps hers arms around her torso, as though this small barrier between herself and the universe could protect her from her own insignificance, and she leans further into James’ side.

 

“You alright?” he asks, glancing down at her, and she wonders if he is having the same internal monologue. If he has realised his own insignificant part in the history of the universe, and how small he is in comparison to the wider world. Or if perhaps he is thinking something completely different.

 

Carmilla nod. “Yeah.”

 

He isn’t convinced in the slightest, but he lets is go and they both glance back up at the stars shining above them before James sighs and looks around.

 

Carmilla feel his hand claps firmly around her own, and she lets him lead her back across the field to the rental car parked on the side of the road near the gate they had both climbed over in order to get a better view of the night sky.

 

It wasn’t an illegal move, James had assured her at the time, but Carmilla isn’t so sure that she believes him.

 

The chains holding the gates shut rattle climb back over, and she thinks that if the owners of the field had wanted people to go stargazing there, they would not have chained the gates closed in the first place. But it doesn’t matter now that they’ve committed themselves to the crime, and she glances once again at the night sky, and feels once again the weight of her own insignificance, and she thinks that in the greater scheme of things this small crime of trespassing doesn’t really matter.

 

///

 

Surprisingly, it only takes her a month before she adjusts to the concept of spontaneous travelling. Her routine is completely non-existent, and she thinks that maybe James is a gift from above because he helps Carmilla through the multiple panic attacks before she adjusts mentally to the concept of a non-routine.

 

The first few weeks of the trip they spend travelling through England, and James drags her to all the tourist attracts the country has to offer. Carmilla only rolls her eyes the first few times before she finds herself genuinely enjoying the kitschy tourist-selfies James insists are an essential part of any great vacation.

 

“We need to document this trip!” he says, “for posterity’s sake!”

 

“Posterity can bite me,” Carmilla drawls in response, “I have better things to do.”

 

“Better than posing with your little brother in front of this guy?” James winks as he tilts his head to the palace guard, and Carmilla cant help but laugh as he poses – in the most dramatic way possible, of course – and she begrudgingly agrees that this is indeed something worth remembering.

 

///

 

Carmilla spends a great deal amount of time thinking during this trip.

 

About herself, and her dad and James. About her mother and William and the way they treated Carmilla during her childhood years; as though she were a broken possession that needed fixing. She thinks about her job, and her friends, and Sadie.

 

She thinks about Mark, too. And Laura. Of course she thinks about Laura. She dedicates a great deal of her mental capacity thinking about her ex-girlfriend. About Laura individually, as a person, and about her and Laura together. As friends. As something more.

 

And even though she spend so much of her time thinking about her, and the way her nose crinkles when she laughs, and the way she runs her hand through her hair, Carmilla can’t seem to make sense of any of the feelings that arise when Laura’s face appears in her mind. She can’t make sense of anything, because Laura makes Carmilla lose any sort of self control she might have possessed before Laura abruptly entered her life.

 

And when she thinks about her, the only thing she knows for sure is that as much as she may try and fight it, there is always going to be some part of her soul that is connected to some part of Laura’s. A part of Carmilla that will never be whole without a part of Laura, because as try as she might, she’s still in love with Laura Hollis in a way Carmilla never thought possible, and never for as far back as she can remember, has she ever felt as inherently whole as she does when she is with Laura.

 

The counter side of that is, though, that never has she felt as broken as she did when Laura betrayed that love. And she is left to wonder whether loving Laura is worth the rick of shattering her newly healed heart.

 

///

 

Carmilla is in Germany when James comes into her hotel room and tells her the news.

 

He tells her slowly, giving her time to digest the words coming out of his mouth, and then he holds her while she works through the emotions that those words cause.

 

“Mark had a heart attack,” he says, “he’s okay, but he’s been put on bed rest for the foreseeable future.”

 

James is a good brother, she thinks. She’s curled up into his side with her head on his chest, and he’s holding her tightly and even though he’s a lot younger than her, Carmilla can’t help but feel protected.

 

A feeling she never got from William; although she can’t remember a time when William ever held her like this, either. Or showed any sign that he cared about Carmilla in the slightest.

 

Nevertheless, she isn’t surprised to find that she falls asleep in that position, and awakens the next morning with a heavy heart and racing mind that James seems to pick up on despite Carmilla not telling him anything.

 

James, Carmilla has discovered, has a knack for reading emotions.

 

(she supposes someone in her family should be)

 

“Do you need anything?” he asks, and Carmilla shake her head in response. Even if she did need something, she isn’t so sure she’d be able to articulate that need. “I’m going to go get some food and bring it back, okay? Just stay there. You’re probably exhausted.”

 

She is, Carmilla realises once he has gone. Exhausted, that is, although she concludes that this must be a form of emotional exhaustion she hasn’t really experienced before. It’s a type of exhaustion that transcends her physical body, and she finds that she feels as though she’s going cry, but doesn’t feel as though she’s capable of it.

 

It’s strange, and new, and unfamiliar, and she wholeheartedly wishes it wasn’t happening.

 

Although to be fair, she wishes that a lot of things weren’t happening.

 

///

 

James comes back with pancakes, and the two eat in silence.

 

///

 

“He’ll be alright?”

 

They are sitting in a café a few blocks from the hotel, and James looks up from the process of adding sugar to his coffee to study Carmilla in a way she has become somewhat familiar with. His forehead creases in such a way that could be taken as frustration, but he smiles not unkindly and Carmilla lets herself relax.

 

“Dad said the doctors put him on bed rest, but he’ll fine in time. The best rest is more to allow his body to recover from the shock, than anything.” He pauses for a moment before adding cautiously, “Laura is with him.”

 

Carmilla nods, and although she doesn’t say anything she feels a little better knowing that he will be okay. That he isn’t alone.

 

James turns his attention back to his coffee, and after stirring it a few times he picks it up, holding it with both hands while he looks at Carmilla from across the table.

 

“It’s normal to be worried.” He says, smiling over the rim of his mug. Carmilla frown, and he continues. “He’s been more like family to you than her actual family. And even though you’ve got me and dad now, Mark has been with you for a lot longer, ya know? It’s normal to be worried and concerned for him.”

 

Carmilla doesn’t say anything, but she nods and smiles at him. He smiles back, lifting his mug to his lips and taking a small sip of his coffee, only to grimace as he swallows and puts to mug back on the table.

 

“I miss American coffee.” He says and Carmilla laughs; a laugh that begins somewhere deep in her stomach and escapes from her upturned lips in waves. And she wonders how the hell this boy manages to make her feel better with a mere four words strung together in a sentence that isn’t even designed to make her feel anything at all.

 

///

 

They spend another week in Germany, before James suggests the two of them go to Italy.

 

“It’ll be fun! We could go see Pompeii!”

 

“It’s a pile of ash, James.”

 

“It’s history, Carmilla.”

 

She stares at him, and he stares back, and she ends up sighing as James does a fist pump in victory.

 

///

 

“I think I might go back to college,” Carmilla says as she stares out at the remains of Pompeii.

 

James looks at her, a small hint of surprise in his otherwise curious gaze. “Yeah?”

 

Carmilla nods.

 

“That would be cool,” he says, “we could go to the same college! Be roomies or something! Karnstein siblings taking over the campus!”

 

She shakes her head, but smiles anyway, and James does a quick spin on his heel before stopping and smiling widely at her. People stare at the two of them as they pass, and there’s a somewhat larger gap between them and the next set of onlookers, but that doesn’t seem to matter as James looks at his sister, appearing positively _chuffed_ that he’s related to her.

 

“You’ll be amazing, Carm.” He says, “I’m proud of you.”

 

“I don’t even know what I’d study.”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” James shakes his head, “because you’ll be amazing at anything and this is a really good thing for you, I think.”

 

Carmilla turns her head to look back over the remains. It’s a house, she notes, and a workshop. The sign says it belonged to Veredcundus, and Carmilla can’t help but wonder if he was one of the thousands that died that day, or if he fled the city at the first signs of trouble.

 

It’s unlikely, she thinks, that he would have survived. Even if he did manage to get out of the city, he could have died in one of the other cities that got buried in ash.

 

“I just want to do something for me,” she whispers, staring blankly at the walls that once housed this Veredcundus person, “I want to do something different, instead of letting things happen to me. I want to _be_ somebody, instead of just…. existing, you know?”

 

“I know,” James replies, stepping closer to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. “And you will. I’ll help you. So will dad, and Mark. You wont be doing it alone.”

 

Carmilla doesn’t say anything in response, and James doesn’t push her. Instead the two silently agree to let the subject drop for now, an walk away from the house, continuing through the site to the next.

 

///

 

Carmilla likes Rome, she decides, because no one there seems to judge her as she walk past.

 

She feels like, in Rome, she’s significant.

 

///

 

 

 

“Thank you,” James says when Carmilla’s getting comfortable in the seat she’ll be occupying for the next nine hours and ten minutes. “For coming with me, that is.”

 

“I should be thanking you,” she replies, and smile at him softly. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

 

James grins, and pokes her nose playfully causing her to scrunch up her face and swat his hand away.

 

“You’ve done really well though, for the record and stuff. I’m really proud of you.”

 

Carmilla ducks her head in a vain attempt at hiding the blush that rises to her cheeks, and her heart feels warm as she feels his arm wrap around her shoulders. He pulls her in, and she lays her head against him, sighing.

 

“I am too,” she whispers, and she isn’t even sure if he heard her or not, but she feels like it needs to be said, anyway.

 

His tightened grip on her bicep makes her think that he did hear, and she closes her eyes as the plane starts to taxi, feeling as though for once the vagueness of the future is actually a good thing.

 

A _really_ good thing.

 

 

. 

 

> _No more turning away_  
>  _From the weak and the weary_  
>  _No more turning away from the coldness inside_  
>  _Just a world that we all must share_  
>  _It's not enough just to stand and stare_  
>  _Is it only a dream that there'll be_  
>  _No more turning away?_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the wait, and that this doesn't seem like it's doing much. it's part of carmilla's self-growth, if you will. Character development? i guess. 
> 
> this series is nearly over, by the way. And Laura will be back in the next part 
> 
> Also Happy New Year! May 2016 be filled with gay


End file.
